EXPOSING THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH: IDA B. WELLS
The Birth of a Nation, released forty years after Reconstruction (1915), helped to revive the KKK. Griffith’s film depicted them as valiant saviors protecting the South from "evil" blacks.
Actors dressed in full Ku Klux Klan regalia for scenes in 1915's The Birth of a Nation.
(Hulton Archive)
"[Griffith] portrayed the emancipated slaves as heathens, as unworthy of being free, as uncivilized, as primarily concerned with passing laws so they could marry white women and prey on them"
~ Dick Lehr, author of The Birth of a Nation: How a Legendary Filmmaker and a Crusading Editor Reignited America's Civil War (NPR)
President Wilson and his cabinet attended its premiere in the White House. The film's success drowned the voices of Civil Rights activists.
[NAACP members outside the Republic Theatre, New York City, to protest the screening of the movie "Birth of a Nation"]. 1947.
(Library of Congress)
"The worst thing about “Birth of a Nation” is how good it is. The merits of its grand and enduring aesthetic make it impossible to ignore and, despite its disgusting content, also make it hard not to love."
~Richard Brody. The Worst Thing About “Birth of a Nation” Is How Good It Is.
(The New Yorker)
"As the film continued to be screened and re-screened well into the 1920s, Lehr says more Klan chapters formed and membership reportedly reached into the millions. New Klansmen were shown TheBirth of Nation and the film continued to be a recruiting tool for decades to come."
~Alexis Clark. How 'The Birth of a Nation' Revived the Ku Klux Klan. 2018.
(History)
D.W.Griffith . The Birth of a Nation. 1915.
(Washington Post)
"It's like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true."
~ Woodrow Wilson
The film depicted Blacks as uncivilized and sexually aggressive towards white women, propagating the rape myth Wells was fighting against. When even the president endorsed the film, Wells had to break the silence barrier and expose the unspoken truth behind the lynchings of Blacks to the entire nation.